Environmental protection
Every investment project affects the natural environment. Effective risk management in this area constitutes a key aspect of the functioning of industry sectors such as, mining, metallurgy, construction and energy. Accordingly, a proper assessment of environmental risks is, in many cases, decisive to the entire project’s success.
Environmental protection challenges have a global dimension so, aside from national law, a vital role in their implementation is also played by EU law and international conventions.
Environmental protection laws are frequently amended and their highly precise content requires a vast knowledge of how different sectors of the economy operate. The increasing amount of environmental law implies an increasingly wider scope of responsibilities for entrepreneurs. An investment’s compliance with environmental law represents a serious challenge which every entrepreneur faces nowadays. This is why the ongoing supervision of a project’s compliance with environmental law and the monitoring of any legislative amendments represent some of the many determinants for the proper operations of businesses including mines, factories or power plants.
Water and sewage management, waste management, gas and dust emissions or soil contamination are merely some of the issues to be kept in mind when preparing and implementing investment projects.
Our team includes experts who have cooperated for many years with clients and entrepreneurs, both domestic and foreign, from various sectors of the economy (e.g. mining, energy, metallurgy, manufacturing/food industries). As a result, we have considerable experience and vast knowledge of the specificities and operations of different markets, so we can offer clients cooperation and services which are fully tailored to their expectations and business needs.
Our services include:
- Comprehensive legal and business advice for investors on any environmental conditions that apply when implementing investment projects;
- Advice on environmental protection law during mergers and takeovers;
- Supporting stakeholders during legislative and policy-making procedures;
- Representing clients before administrative bodies in order to obtain environmental decisions and permits required for investment projects;
- Representing clients in environmental protection proceedings conducted before administrative bodies, the common or administrative courts and the Supreme Administrative Court;
- Day-to-day legal advice on ensuring compliance with environmental obligations;
- Comprehensive legal and business advice on specialized issues such as trading licenses for greenhouse gas emissions, the REACH regulation or the circular economy.
How can we help you?
Investment Project Implementation
- Advising on environmental law issues concerning an investment’s execution;
- Drafting legal reviews, studies, reports and audits describing the legal and environmental conditions of an investment and developing a feasibility study for the investment;
- Assisting in obtaining environmental decisions and advising on an environmental impact assessment procedure;
- Advising and representing the client in procedures to acquire or amend environmental permits, including integrated and sectoral permits (concerning water law, waste and emissions);
- Advising on the transfer of (or succession to) environmental permits following the sales of assets or an organized part of an enterprise or changes to the ownership structure of the holding entity;
- Coordinating services provided by third-party consultants, including environmental protection technicians and engineers, to support the investment and the client’s business;
- Advising on environmental issues in the natural resources sector, particularly oil, gas, coal, aggregates, potassium salts, brines and water;
- Representing a client in administrative proceedings conducted by the environmental protection authorities and the administrative courts, the Supreme Administrative Court and common courts of law;
- Helping to ensure that the client’s business activities are compliant with the requirements and limitations of EU law.
Mergers and Acquisitions
- Advising on a share deal, asset deal transactions and a group restructuring processes and also on environmental protection law; we participated in negotiations and prepared transaction-related documents;
- Conducting environmental-law audits, including an analysis of formal legal documentation concerning environment use, particularly administrative decisions and permits, inventory and reporting documentation and other environmental documentation;
- Drafting reports (full/red-flag) on completed audits and any risks identified during such audits;
- Verifying the transferability of administrative decisions, permits and licenses for the use of the environment;
Legislative Process
- Monitoring proposed legislative amendments;
- Establishing stakeholder coalitions;
- Providing substantive advice on the legislative process, designing proposed legislative solutions and drafting comments to be submitted in public consultations on draft legal acts and their principal targets;
- Providing substantive advice for interested parties in connection with the shaping of environmental policies (particularly as regards energy, environmental protection and raw materials policies);
- Implementing advocacy and public affairs projects and initiatives to raise public awareness of specific legal amendments;
- Supporting state aid beneficiaries in proceedings before the European Commission;
- Developing and implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) solutions in the environmental area and structures based on the circular economy concept.
Administrative Decisions and Permits
- Preparing applications, appendices and other documents related to acquiring or amending administrative decisions, licenses, permits and notifications in the area of environmental protection related to the business activities, including integrated permits for IPPC installations;
- Verifying integrated permits and initial reports in terms of BAT conclusions;
- Advising on the legal aspects of water management, including the acquisition of water-law decisions, permits and licenses;
- Advising on the legal aspects of emission management, including the acquisition of decisions concerning the release of gases and dusts into the air;
- Verifying the transferability of administrative decisions, permits and licenses for environment use;
- Coordinating services provided by third-party consultants, including environmental protection technicians and engineers, to support investment projects and clients’ businesses.
Environmental Registers, Reporting and Fees
- Advising on enterprises’ duty to be included in environmental registers and to update their data;
- Assisting with reporting obligations concerning the use of the environment and related fees;
- Supporting waste management reporting;
- Advising on the legal aspects of water management, water service fees and related reporting.
Waste Management
- Advising on waste management, including hazardous and municipal waste, and the law concerning packaging waste;
- Assisting with the management of manufacturing process by-products, including mining waste; this includes implementing processes related to the loss of waste status and the generation of by-products;
- Analyzing the compliance of business activity with EU legislation, including the Waste Directive and REACH Regulation;
- Advising on packaging management, including Product Database (BDO) registrations, agreements on packaging management and on maintaining lawful recycling levels;
- Implementing infrastructural environmental protection projects in areas such as waste incineration plants, wastewater treatment plants, selective waste collection points and alternative fuel manufacturing plants;
- Advice on acquiring sectoral permits related to waste management, including municipal waste;
- Advising on landfill operations, waste processing, alternative fuel production and the collection, transport and selection of waste;
- Supporting projects for the transport of waste, including cross-border projects;
- Helping to ensure that clients’ business activities are compliant with the current waste management obligations, including updating waste permits where necessary;
- Supporting on the possible use of drones to monitor landfills.
Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading
- Advising on all aspects of operating sites within the Emissions Trading Scheme;
- Representing clients in proceedings concerning environmental protection;
- Supporting the acquisition of free emission certificates;
- Assisting with trading in certificates and derivatives;
- Verifying and advising on the possibility to opt-out of the EU emissions trading scheme.
Environmental damage, remediation, reclamation
- Advising on liability for environmental contamination, including soil contamination, and the prevention and repair of environmental damage and legacy environmental contamination;
- Representing clients in proceedings to determine liability for environmental damage, including soil remediation;
- Drafting contractual clauses concerning liability for environmental damage in the event of real property succession;
- Supporting the identification of historical information about environmental conditions.
What makes us different?
A client-friendly |
Flexible collaboration models |
Top quality |
Familiarity with key sectors of the economy |
Experience in specialist industry areas |
Experience
Environmental audits on water, water and sewage and waste management, focused mainly on analysing water permits and advising on any amendments of water regulations.
Environmental audits of wind and photovoltaic farms.
Comprehensive advice on a project implemented by a leading energy supplier, concerning the consumption of replacement fuel generated as a result of upgrading the legal status of municipal and sewage waste.
Advising a Polish leader in the upstream sector on the acquisition and amendment of environmental decisions, sectorial permits and actions undertaken to repair environmental harm.
Comprehensive advice on an investment, conducting proceedings and obtaining an environmental decision for shopping centres in Poznań, Kielce and Olsztyn.
Advising an international energy group on the implementation of a multi-year municipal waste incineration plant project in Poland’s largest urban areas.
Comprehensive advice on an investment to convert a landfill site for waste generated by a coal-fired power plant.
Comprehensive advice on packaging waste management and product fees; ongoing monitoring of the relevant legislation; cyclical reports on environmental risks.
Supporting a project of the world’s largest provider of oilfield management services, by helping to acquire all necessary waste management permits.
Advising an international capital group operating in Poland’s upstream sector on environmental protection and waste management.
Assisting R&D projects on waste management and environmental protection.
Supporting the implementation of a project to manage the incineration of by-products (UPS) for one of Poland’s biggest energy groups.
Implementing a CSR strategy on environmental protection in the mining industry and advising on non-financial data reporting.
Obtaining permits for the emission of greenhouse gases for new commercial premises on behalf of businesses operating in various industries.
